Ex-spy’s daughter says she’s recovering
LONDON — In her first public comment since she and her father, a former Russian spy, were poisoned by a nerve agent, Yulia Skripal said Thursday from a hospital that she’s recovering quickly, but the whole ordeal has been “somewhat disorientating.”
Britain has blamed Russia for the March 4 poisoning of Yulia and Sergei Skripal in the city of Salisbury, and more than two dozen Western allies have expelled more than 150 Russian diplomats in a show of solidarity. Moscow has fiercely denied the accusations and sent home an equal number of envoys in an all-out diplomatic war unseen even at the height of the Cold War.
Yulia Skripal said in a statement released by British police that her “strength is growing daily” and expressed gratitude to those who came to her aid.
“I am sure you appreciate that the entire episode is somewhat disorientating, and I hope that you’ll respect my privacy and that of my family during the period of my convalescence,” the 33-year-old said.
The hospital treating the Skripals confirmed that Yulia’s health has improved, while her 66-year-old father remains in critical condition.
Russian state Rossiya TV on Thursday released a recording of a purported phone call between Yulia Skripal and her cousin in Russia, although the broadcaster said it could not verify its authenticity. In the call, Yulia Skripal allegedly says she and her father are both recovering and in normal health, and that her father’s health has not been irreparably damaged.
Rossiya TV said Skripal’s niece, Viktoria, who lives in Moscow, gave it the purported recording.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described the British accusations against Moscow as a mockery of international law. At a news conference Thursday, Lavrov insisted the poisoning case was fabricated by Britain to “demonize” Russia.
“The so-called Skripal case has been used as a fictitious, orchestrated pretext for the unfounded massive expulsions of Russian diplomats not only from the U.S. and Britain but also from a number of other countries who simply had their arms twisted,” Lavrov said in Moscow. “We have never seen such an open mockery of the international law, diplomatic ethics and elementary decorum.”
As part of the diplomatic row, Russia last week ordered 60 U.S. diplomats to leave the country by Thursday in retaliation for Washington’s expulsion of the same number of Russians.
Three buses believed to be carrying expelled American diplomats left the U.S. Embassy in Moscow early Thursday after their luggage was loaded on trucks. Some toted pet carriers.
More than 150 diplomats have been expelled by Britain and allies, and Russia has ordered reciprocal moves.
Lavrov noted that Russia will respond in kind to any further hostile moves but added that “we also want to establish the truth.”
He sarcastically likened the British accusations to the queen from Alice in Wonderland urging “sentence first — verdict afterward.”
Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, opened a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Thursday with a lengthy statement in which he claimed that Russia was the victim of a hasty, sloppy and ill-intentioned defamation campaign by Britain and its allies.
Nebenzia said: “Great Britain refuses to cooperate with us on the pretext that the victim does not cooperate with the criminal. … A crime was committed on British territory, possibly a terrorist act, and it is our citizens who are the victims.”
Nebenzia challenged Britain to take his statement as “a litmus test” of the country’s integrity and respect for international norms.
On Wednesday, Russia called a meeting of the international chemical weapons watchdog to demand a joint investigation with Britain into the poisoning — a demand that London has rejected.
The Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons voted against the Russian proposal, but Moscow said the number of countries that abstained from the vote suggested many have doubts about Britain’s accusations.
“It’s unacceptable to make unfounded accusations instead of conducting a fair investigation and providing concrete facts,” Lavrov said. “Yesterday’s debate in The Hague showed that self-respecting adults don’t believe in fairy tales.”
Asked if Russia would accept the chemical weapons organization’s conclusions, Lavrov said Moscow must be part of the inquiry and see the evidence.
“We can’t give an advance approval to results of the investigation, in which we aren’t taking part and which is kept secret,” he said. “We would accept the results of any investigation that would be fair, not the one organized in a fraudulent way.”
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Wednesday that “the purpose of Russia’s ludicrous proposal at The Hague was clear — to undermine the independent, impartial work of the international chemical weapons watchdog.”
The head of Britain’s defense research facility, the Porton Down laboratory, acknowledged Tuesday that it has not been able to pinpoint the precise source of the nerve agent.
Information for this article was contributed by Jim Heintz and Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow of The Associated Press.